Heist

You can greatly increase your chances of seeing entertaining films by
avoiding films that were advertised for eight or nine months before they
came out. If the studio keeps pushing back the release date, it's almost
always trying to find a soft spot in the cinematic market in which to
place a low-quality film. So "Heist," whose posters and trailers
have been making sporadic appearances since spring, would seem to be a
bad filmgoing prospect.

But even skeptical moviegoers might suspend their suspicions when considering
whether to watch "Heist." After all, David Mamet, master of
the manly monosyllable, wrote and directed. Those he directed include
Gene Hackman and Delroy Lindo, both carrying impeccable manly credentials,
as well as Danny DeVito, undoubtedly cast to bring Hackman and Lindo's
manliness into sharper relief.

And the plot seems foolproof: Joe Moore (Hackman) needs one last big
score so he can retire to some southern latitude on his big, beautiful
boat. Ripping off the people with the cash is easy, with the help of Bobby
(Lindo), Pinky (Ricky Jay) and his young wife Fran (Rebecca Pidgeon, who
is also Mamet's wife); completing the heist without getting ripped off
by his partners proves much more difficult.

Bergman (DeVito), the fence, seems particularly anxious that this score
get done, so much so that he threatens to shop Hackman to the police if
it doesn't. And it's not like Bergman's proved himself particularly trustworthy
in the past; he's holding out on giving Joe his share of the last job
until he completes this one. Fran seems to be a temptation for every man
who comes into the shop, particularly the ironically named Jimmy Silk
(Sam Rockwell), an incompetent who Bergman sent along to make sure the
job was done to his specifications. And the motives of Bobby and Pinky
are called into question as well. The morass of backstabbings, lies, turnabouts
and hidden agendas doesn't resolve itself until the final fadeout.

So why would anyone delay the release of this film for even a second?
The problem is that with all the plot twists and turns, Mamet can't (or
doesn't want to) find time to give us a reason to care about any of these
people. Hackman and Lindo both have a glorious power nothing can take
awaycall it sheer testosteronal charismaand the movie rightly
centers on their characters. But Mamet's trademark terse, semi-poetic
profanity doesn't give them room to establish motives or redeeming personality
traits or anything, and the action itself shuns flash and panache so much
that these characters seem muted as well. (Pinky has a niece who he loves,
but you know she's just in there to be menaced by some evil dude eventually.)
In addition, Pidgeon is not nearly as attractive as Mamet seems to think
she is. It's a sweet error considering the relationship in which it took
place, but certain characters go pretty far to feed the Pidgeon, and their
actions make little sense to an unbiased viewer.

Halfway through "Heist," the cool, tense atmosphere established
by Mamet's oblique plotting and dialogue and the manly lead actors evaporates;
under the light of close inspection, there's nothing more than atmosphere
there. The remainder of the film lays out its fiendishly complicated plot
more than it does anything else, and it feels more like pieces of a puzzle
snapping into place than characters doing anything we might want to care
about. Mamet's dialogue doesn't help; lines like "Cute as a Chinese
baby" are not improved by contemplation, and the mantralike repetition
of the words "lame" (as a noun) and "burnt" eventually
becomes nonsensical. Even when Mamet loosens up a bit for the climactic
bloodbath, all you can feel are angles and schemes and (least forgivably)
action-movie clichés, not anything alive or invigorating.

Mamet makes much in the film of how criminals are like actors in that
they must disguise themselves and their intentions skillfully to accomplish
their goals. If you watch this film, you'll probably agree at least that
actors are like criminals, because Mamet and his men will have stolen
eight bucks from you and given you not much in return.

WHY IN THE HELL WOULD YOU TAKE YOUR YOUNG CHILD TO THIS
FILM? AND WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU REFER TO ANOTHER PERSON'S CHILD AS AN
INANIMATE OBJECT? AN AMAZED INQUIRY

Yeppers, there was a couple at the screening of "Heist" with
a small child. And, of course, that small child started talking when it
became apparent that the men on screen did not mean each other well when
they used a famous four-letter word over and over and over again. But
instead of taking the child out of the theater as the parent at
"From Hell" did, the parents stayed in their seats with
the child.

Then a movie critic (NOT ME; someone I don't know but recognize) turned
around and addressed them.

"Either shut that thing up or get it out of here," he said,
loud enough for the entire theater to hear.

Something was said in response to the effect that the kid would shut
up when he or she damn well felt like shutting up, you mother[etc.]ing
bitch. This is probably the time to note that the father of this child
was an absolutely huge man. The movie critic stood his ground, questioning
the father's rightness in calling him a bitch and reiterating his direction
to "shut that thing up."

I was not able to listen to the entire standoff, because I was supposed
to write intelligent things about the movie when I got home, and this
was way more interesting than anything that was happening in the actual
movie. (Kudos to the always-estimable Robert Kahn for reporting much of
the above dialogue.) All the same, based on what I heard, the small-child-bringing
father and the movie critic deserve equal condemnation. The movie critic
was well within his rights to politely request that something be done
about the noise emanating from the young child. But it's hard to think
of a ruder way to make that request, and to the extent that anyone deserves
public verbal abuse, he deserved it. Someone else's incredibly negligent
parenting does not exuse poor manners, as any manners maven will tell
you. Nevertheless, the whole thing was pretty sickening.

This film's release was apparently delayed the last time because,
after September 11th, someone apparently decided that it would not be
entertaining to watch criminals breach our avation security systems. But
it was delayed before that too! I swear.